The Professor, the Puppet, and the Execution

I saw The Professor, the Puppet, and the Execution by
Todd Moore and his son, a largely unadvertised and experimental play
in The Bullit section of Seattle's A Contemporary Theatre. Given that
I can't find any information about it in the theatre's own website, I
am unable to provide specific details about the production
itself. What I want to do is comment on some the themes that were
touched upon.

The best aspect of the play is its commentary on violence. The
plot tells the story of Kyle who is about to be executed for killing
his wife and son. The play makes the point that violence occurs in
this world because children are exposed to it at an early age. This is
accomplished not just by showcasing Kyle's abuse as a child, but also
in an initial discourse about how violence pervades society, and in
the way we take delight in executions.

As I've said many
times before, violence is never the solution any problem (I'm a pacifist). Even if it
works in the short term, it is bound to lead to more violence in the
longer term. All the children in the world are essentially taught the
lesson that "might makes right" whenever violence is used to solve a
problem. For that reason, no matter how justified a cause might be,
the use of violence completes negates it. This is partly the reason
we see school shootings and other random acts of violence today.

The play is structured in an interesting manner: we jump between
Kyle's childhood and his current situation, until the two story lines
converge. The story is told using puppets which are handled extremely
well. The voices were done exceptionally well. The set design was
fairly minimal, and in my view, not the best. Perhaps I missed the
point, but it wasn't clear why we had to see the puppeteers while the
puppets were being manipulated.

The biggest problem I had with the play was its lack of
focus. While the ideas presented were very good, the initial
commentary about violence, the case of Kyle, and the final
commentary about the nature of the death penalty don't fit together
into a cohesive whole. There are some extraneous bits that could be
eliminated. But keep in mind, this was a preliminary version and
later productions will hopefully be a lot more tight.